In Remembrance: Louis A. Garfinkle

     Louis A. Garfinkle, who shared an Academy Award nomination for contributing to the screenplay of director Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978), has passed away on October 3, 2005 in Studio City, CA. He was 77.

     Garfinkle was born in Seattle, Washington in 1928 and graduated from University of Southern California in 1948.

     The screenplay for The Deer Hunter was based in part on the unproduced screenplay The Man Who Came To Play co-written in 1975 by Garfinkle and Quinn K. Redeker. Although Garfinkle and Redeker had nothing to do with the Deer Hunter production, the Screen Writers Guild arbitrated that they deserved a “Story By” credit on the film. This enabled them to share in the Oscar nomination with Cimino and Deer Hunter scripter Deric Washburn.

     Garfinkle’s first screenwriting credit was on the 1956 western The Young Guns. He served as both writer and producer on his next two films - the thriller I Bury The Living (1958) and the drama Face Of Fire (1959). Garfinkle’s next two films were the spaghetti westerns Crudeli, I (The Cruel Ones/The Hellbenders, 1967) and Un Minuto Per Pregare, Un Istante Per Morire (A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die, 1968). He also contributed the screenplays for The Doberman Gang (1972), Little Cigars (1973) and Milena (1991). Garfinkle also co-wrote the story for the 1973 Broadway musical Molly, which starred Kaye Ballard. He also scripted the play I Shall Return.

     Also, along with screenwriter Francis Feighan and director Cary Brown, Garfinkle helped to create Collaborator, one of the first computer software programs for scriptwriters. The program was reported to be popular at studios and with actors and writers who were attempting to get projects started in the early 1990s. The program posed questions to the user with an aim to shaping a movie treatment and fleshing out characters.